A close kinsman of Moses and Aaron, a man named Korah, has gathered a large group of men to oppose the leadership of Moses and Aaron. These men are a bunch of discontents. They're unhappy with the jobs appointed to them by the Lord and feel they should be assigned duties where they can be in the public eye and become well known. Moses prayed to the Lord for guidance and then announced to the men that on the following day the Lord would make it known who is right with Him and who is not. At this point in our study, we are still in the day in which the men brought their complaints to Moses and asked him who he thinks he is and asked him what gives him and Aaron the right to be the political and religious leaders of the community.
The majority of the unhappy gang are from the tribe of Levi, but two men of the tribe of Reuben have joined in with the rebels. Their names are Dathan and Abiram. After saying his piece to Korah and the other Levites in the passage we studied yesterday, Moses calls the two Reubenites to account for their behavior but they refuse to come into his presence. "Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But they said, 'We will not come! Isn't it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? And now you also want to lord it over us! Moreover, you haven't brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you want to treat these men like slaves? No, we will not come!'" (Numbers 16:12-14)
Wow, talk about rewriting history! These men are practically delusional in their denial of their suffering in the past and in their denial of the reason for their current predicament of being stuck in the wilderness. They fondly recall the land of their slavery and harsh treatment as a land flowing with milk and honey. Was there plentiful food in Egypt? Yes, but they ate it under the yoke of oppression. Not only do they blame Moses for leading them out of Egypt---the land they now view with rose-colored glasses---but they blame Moses for not having already brought them into the promised land---a land they've been told flows with milk and honey. They could already be taking hold of the promised land if pretty much the entire community hadn't refused to enter it in Chapter 14. Their faith failed them in Chapter 14 and as a result they accused the Lord of having bad intentions toward them. They turned all their anxiety and all their anger toward Moses and Aaron and intended to kill them and then run back to Egypt as fast as they could go. Nothing that's happening in Chapter 16 is Moses' fault but all the blame is being heaped on him.
Why are they playing the blame game? When we find ourselves in a mess of our own making it's easier to put the blame on someone else than to admit we're responsible for our own poor circumstances. It's easier to remember the past as being more pleasant than it actually was. It's easier to go backward where we know what to expect (like the Israelites wanting to go back to Egypt) than to forge ahead bravely in faith into the future. The unhappy men in our current chapter have no one to blame but themselves for their circumstances but it's so much easier to point their fingers at Moses. These men's hearts aren't right with the Lord and they make no attempt to make things right with the Lord. If only they'd faced their mistakes honestly and repented of them, things would have turned out differently.
Moses appeals to the Lord, who knows all things, to be a witness to his honesty. "Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, 'Do not accept their offering. I have not taken so much as a donkey from them, nor have I wronged any of them.'" (Numbers 16:15) Moses has not treated anyone "like slaves" as the two Reubenites accuse him of doing.
When Moses implores the Lord, "Do not accept their offering," it is believed that he's speaking of the offerings these men want to make as self-appointed priests. They will be presented with a choice in tomorrow's study to continue with their presumptuous desire to be priests without the Lord's blessing or whether to recognize they're in the wrong and to repent. They are not lawfully allowed to be priests---these two are not even of the tribe of Levi, much less of Aaron's line---and they have no right to perform the duties of a priest. The Lord plainly said to Moses in Numbers 3:10: "Appoint Aaron and his sons to serve as priests; anyone else who approaches the sanctuary is to be put to death." The entire community witnessed the ordination of Aaron and his sons. Everyone knows what the Lord said about this matter, but certain men in the community (including the two Reubenites) want to take the office of priest without the Lord's blessing. As my commentary on Numbers by Adam Clarke says about Numbers 16:15, when Moses asks the Lord not to accept the offerings of these men, there was no danger of the Lord accepting their offerings because, "They wished to set up a priesthood and a sacrificial system of their own; and God never has blessed, and never can bless, any scheme of salvation which is not of His own appointment. Man is ever supposing that he can mend his Maker's work, or that he can make one of his own that will do in its place."
God is the one who sets the terms of salvation. We cannot attain it by any method other than the one He has prescribed. This is why the Lord Jesus Christ said, "No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6) This is the method by which we are to be saved: by placing our faith in Christ who paid our sin debt in full for us on the cross. We will not have success with a plan of salvation of our own making. We can't attain righteousness by trying to live a perfect life; we'll fail. We are not capable of living a sin-free life. Once we realize we can't live a perfect life, we must not make the mistake of thinking we can achieve salvation by living as if God is going to weigh our deeds on a set of scales and impute righteousness to us if our good deeds outweigh the bad; there's nothing Scriptural whatsoever about such a doctrine. Another trap we don't want to fall into is believing we can perform acts of penance designed to "undo" our mistakes. The past can't be changed; it can only be atoned for, and the only atonement God accepts is that which His son made on the cross. We must be careful not to be like the rebellious men of Numbers 16 who think there are many paths to God and that each person can forge their own path to Him in their own way. The Bible doesn't support such a doctrine. On the contrary, it condemns it.
As we move on through our chapter tomorrow, we find the attitude of the discontented men condemned by the Lord. Their rebellion against Moses and Aaron---and against the Lord Himself who appointed them to their positions---will not stand. These men may be grumbling against Moses and Aaron but at heart their grievance is actually with the Lord. They do not like His plan. They don't want to accept His plan. They don't want to abide by His plan. Because they are unrepentant, and because they present a danger to the community, the Lord will judge them in the sight of the whole community.
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